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The first movie by Michael Haneke (proper, having already made some films for German television) is a treatise of intent, a good example of the interest which the Austrian director channeled all his subsequent films.
To be specific, although the film is divided into three parts, may dissected in half in terms of plot development. A first half to show the daily life of a bourgeois family, a couple with a young daughter, and a final part to detail the self-destruction which has no choice.
"The Seventh Continent" is based on a real event and dissects the tedium of Western life in a drab and unbearable parade of daily habits that lead to a horror vacui which leads to more pessimistic existential questioning.
Based on static shots, the film is becoming a film-essay that characterizes the work of this philosopher by training who is Haneke. Mechanical repetition of acts from sounding the alarm clock at 6 am familiar, and from here, the exposure of tics of the "welfare state" that lead to selfishness and then to self-absorption and personal alienation. The consumer factor is well developed in the action, with its surplus of all kinds, starting with the purchase in the supermarket, at the family table, but almost no boost communication between its members.
The weakest aspect I see in this as in other films of Austrian filmmaker exhibition is its excessive cold, mechanical at times, where events are happening without any prior explanation as to, if not justify, at least give them some sense. Not given any opportunity to the characters, sometimes closer to robots than humans. Not examined in depth and even less reason is put forward to explain their actions. This gives the final product a sense close to parabola. When the last shot reveals a TV as a sole survivor, this suspicion seems confirmed.
7/10
